Local Markets

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to take part in this debate. We are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Harrison for his initiative in providing a platform for the various aspects of what one would call the markets industry. Some might say that everything that can be said, has been said, but I say: “Not by everybody”. My twopennyworth goes back many years, and the message is in retailing above all things nothing stands still.

My memory of my home town, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is that there was fish, greengrocery, flower and meat markets which were all separate entities, managed and understood by people who wanted those goods. They were all connected with what was called the Grainger market, which was where many fine activities went on. Whenever I ring my sister, my only living direct relative, I ask her: “Where have you been?”. When she tells me, I say: “That is next to so and so”, and she says: “Oh, that’s been gone years ago”. Whether we like it or not, we have to recognise that change takes place.

I was interested in the opportunities markets can give people. I pray in aid a marvellous document called Market Times. It is a fund of knowledge about what goes on in the market industry. There is a piece where Alison provides the icing on the cake for “Love your Local Market”. The part I want to quote is this:

“I couldn’t have afforded a shop, but the market business has turned our fortunes around”.

The article continues that she has moved to a larger unit. She got the opportunity through the variety of sizes and the variety of goods. When one reads these articles, from which I shall quote further, one realises that nothing stands still. We must recognise that progress in retailing and shopping has been going on. We have all enjoyed it, because markets are patronised. At the same time, however, one has to look at history.

There is an advert here for Romford market, which gives 10 good reasons why we should support it. It says that it is,

“a vibrant market successfully trading”,

since 1247. That is not 13 minutes to 1 pm; that is 700 years ago. It is has been going on all that time, up and down. I know Romford reasonably well, though I do not know its entire history. I have another quote here about Waltham Cross. The great thing about this magazine, which does so much to tell us what is going on in the world, is that it is not only very readable, but it is very exciting to read these things. The statistics we have had from the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, are absolutely well-founded and well-based. Sometimes, of course, one gets upset. One of the other articles has the headline, “Struggling Crawley market loses lifeline”. I am told sometimes of decisions that have been made by the local authority in order to better plan, as the council sees it, but the council needs to see the impact on the market.

The National Federation of Market Traders is where I made my entry. In 1983 I was a new boy here. The late Lady Phillips—the wife of Morgan Phillips, the great man in Labour history and chairman of the Consumer Council—said to me, “Ted, I’ve been asked to have lunch with people who know a little bit about retailing. Would you come?” I said yes, and the outcome of that is that I became the parliamentary representative for market traders. I have kept in touch with them ever since.

We have got to appreciate that what we are looking for from the Government is for them to understand that if you do not use it, you lose it. It is all very well saying that the big boys are entitled to get bigger, but they only get bigger by pinching from the smaller boys, and we have got to be careful there.

The Minister, Mark Prisk, is not unfamiliar with the market business. An article states:

“He said markets had a unique charm and character. ‘They offer the opportunity to come down to taste the cheese—an experience you cannot replicate online”’.

That is great. It shows where his heart is: he wants to see the industry protected and thriving.

One of the pictures here shows the opportunity given to a Lithuanian man who is a cheesemaker and a cheese-importer. Therefore you have opportunities in the market industry to provide people with an opportunity to do what they want—to work—at a cost that they can afford, which many of them can, and so you have a perpetuation.

I simply want to say to the Committee that nothing stands still, and we are well served. I say to those who are listening to the debate here and elsewhere that voices from a number of places have been aired in this debate. Nobody is an expert with a capital “E”. We all have our own experience, I have mine; and I am grateful to the Committee.